Got this card today and its very loud even at idle. Running 1750 RPM at its lowest (doesn't seem to go lower below 25% fan speed at all), even when reduced with MSI afterburner controls.Do I have a faulty one or is this really how its supposed to be :/

The noise is somewhat high pitched making it even more annoying to the ear.

Temps are 32 C at idle, so its certainly not because its running hot either.

I have the same problem, stays at ~2000 rpm (core temp 32 C), not loud, but not silent either.

Since there are now at least 3 people in the forums (and some other reviews) that have found tis card to not be as quiet as the sample SPCR received, might it be an idea to post a warning in the article? Since it is SPCR recommended at the moment?

Since there are now at least 3 people in the forums (and some other reviews) that have found tis card to not be as quiet as the sample SPCR received, might it be an idea to post a warning in the article? Since it is SPCR recommended at the moment?

Numbers are not compelling. 3 of how many? Set up a poll, ask ALL buyers/users of this card to comment.

Since there are now at least 3 people in the forums (and some other reviews) that have found tis card to not be as quiet as the sample SPCR received, might it be an idea to post a warning in the article? Since it is SPCR recommended at the moment?

Numbers are not compelling. 3 of how many? Set up a poll, ask ALL buyers/users of this card to comment.

Agreed, seems reasonable!

Would you mind posting the bios of the card you tested? or can I send you mine and could you do a crc32 check?

grijzegeest -- the BIOS version is right there on the gpuz screenshot on page 5. BIOS ending in 038735.

I just set it up on a test platform & it is idling at around 1600rpm. BIOS unchanged since the test. It does not sound that great up close the sound is dominated by a buzz -- but this is what Larry reported, too. He measured 15 dBA vs 14 dBA for the reference ATI HSF -- installed and running in an enclosed system.

You have to remember, we do not test the noise on open bench, it is done in our P180 vga test platform system -- the logic is simple, that you never hear the video card outside the case, and it's unrealistic to test to test cooling/noise at load on the open bench -- way too easy.

Since this is SPCR, we're using the best noise-muffling case you can buy. (It's foam lined inside, has no real noise sources other than the video card.) Larry did say the Asus was the quietest overall -- 15 dBA idle + 18 dBA load -- inside the system/enclosure, which is not only well damped but also well cooled.

Maybe all of you guys complaining of high idle speeds need to work on improving cool air intake to the VGA card?

grijzegeest -- the BIOS version is right there on the gpuz screenshot on page 5. BIOS ending in 038735.

I just set it up on a test platform & it is idling at around 1600rpm. BIOS unchanged since the test. It does not sound that great up close the sound is dominated by a buzz -- but this is what Larry reported, too. He measured 15 dBA vs 14 dBA for the reference ATI HSF -- installed and running in an enclosed system.

You have to remember, we do not test the noise on open bench, it is done in our P180 vga test platform system -- the logic is simple, that you never hear the video card outside the case, and it's unrealistic to test to test cooling/noise at load on the open bench -- way too easy.

Since this is SPCR, we're using the best noise-muffling case you can buy. (It's foam lined inside, has no real noise sources other than the video card.) Larry did say the Asus was the quietest overall -- 15 dBA idle + 18 dBA load -- inside the system/enclosure, which is not only well damped but also well cooled.

Maybe all of you guys complaining of high idle speeds need to work on improving cool air intake to the VGA card?

Hi MikeC,

Thanks for the effort!

Yes I know, my bios version is the same, it is just that the lower %PWM seems to be limited somewhere other then the normal location shown in RBE bios editor, since changing it there and flashing still gives a lower limit of 22 %PWM. Thats why I would like to do a CRC comparison to see if your samples bios has been altered (not by you) for better sound performance (yes a little paranoid). That way I can exclude that and less possibilities remain (my hardware, the cards hardware (fan?) or drivers)

My card is always running at the lowest fan speed setting, 22 %PWM. From the poll and other posts it seems that 22 %PWM (BIOS lower limit) gives different RPM values for different samples, which is weird I would say, and I think there lies the cause for the differences in noise. But why? Different fan types used in production? Since PWM/rpm ratio is hardwired into the fan? (unless I misunderstood the principle)

( My home situation: I have the card in an Antec Solo with 2 nexus 92mm fans at the front intake running at 75% (~1200rpm, which I cannot hear normally, the case is below my desk) and a nexus 120mm PWM at ~770 RPM on my HR-01 plus. In that "real world" situation I can clearly hear the fan on the graphics card, through the noise of my television)

grijzegeest -- I don't know what your fan is running at, but many fans are subject to fair bit of variation. 10% difference in speed (at a given voltage/pwm service -- whether min or max) is not unusual. Maybe these fans have enough variance for some of us to get lucky.

if software controls can't change it, I know I'd dig in and mod the thing to run a bigger better quieter fan -- but in such a way that the mod could be undone in case you need warranty service. Both the fan and the plastic shroud can be easily removed. Just takes a small screw driver.

Save the parts, put the heatsink back on, strap a couple of good 120, 100, or 92mm fans to the heatsink with plastic wire ties, hook them up to whatever fan headers you want and try adjusting even manually. Chances are, with bigger better fan(s), you could run it at slow steady speed, just fast enough to keep the gpu cool enough even at full load, but still quieter than the stock fan at idle.

grijzegeest -- I don't know what your fan is running at, but many fans are subject to fair bit of variation. 10% difference in speed (at a given voltage/pwm service -- whether min or max) is not unusual. Maybe these fans have enough variance for some of us to get lucky.

if software controls can't change it, I know I'd dig in and mod the thing to run a bigger better quieter fan -- but in such a way that the mod could be undone in case you need warranty service. Both the fan and the plastic shroud can be easily removed. Just takes a small screw driver.

Save the parts, put the heatsink back on, strap a couple of good 120, 100, or 92mm fans to the heatsink with plastic wire ties, hook them up to whatever fan headers you want and try adjusting even manually. Chances are, with bigger better fan(s), you could run it at slow steady speed, just fast enough to keep the gpu cool enough even at full load, but still quieter than the stock fan at idle.

MikeC: I agree there is usually some variation, but 500 rpm (mine is rinning at ~2000 rpm, 22 %PWM) seems to be a bit much, so I guess I'm not a lucky one...

"Modding" is on the way, ordered a Twin Turbo Pro earlier this week and should get it tomorrow. However, I am still curious about the why...

(the TT pro takes 3 slots, which means I have to move my USB 3.0 card one slot down to a PCI-E 8x slot, causing my graphics card to also run at 8x instead of 16x, will run some tests to see if that matters much)

MikeC: I agree there is usually some variation, but 500 rpm (mine is rinning at ~2000 rpm, 22 %PWM) seems to be a bit much, so I guess I'm not a lucky one...

"Modding" is on the way, ordered a Twin Turbo Pro earlier this week and should get it tomorrow. However, I am still curious about the why...

(the TT pro takes 3 slots, which means I have to move my USB 3.0 card one slot down to a PCI-E 8x slot, causing my graphics card to also run at 8x instead of 16x, will run some tests to see if that matters much)

Hoping you will report on how well the Twin Turbo fits, and how it performs compared to the stock cooler. It is the same aftermarket cooler I've considered.

Hoping you will report on how well the Twin Turbo fits, and how it performs compared to the stock cooler. It is the same aftermarket cooler I've considered.

8x shouldn't matter at all for a card like this I think.

Just installed the Twin Turbo Pro on my EAH6850, it fits, with some small adjustments to the original VRM heatsink. I removed it temporarily and carefully bend the fins all under an angle in one direction to get a few extra mm room.

You have to be precise when installing the large memory heat-sink, but this is explained quite well in the manual. When installing the TTPro itself you have to be careful to tighten the screws crosswise to get good contact with the core, I had to do it twice, made a 10 C difference on GPU temp #2.

I connected the fan to the card, and when running idle I can barely hear my computer from below my desk. When under full load it ramps up nicely to a noise which is comparable to the original fan on idle. Which for me is a big improvement.

One disadvantage is that the rpm signal is messed up, it keeps switching randomly between ~600000 (yes 5 zero's) and ~3400 rpm. I found some other people on the web with the same problem, so I guess it's not just me. But since the PWM is working properly I can live with that.

People more adventurous than me might want to try MikeCs suggestion first and remove the plastic cover and fan, and attach your own low rpm fan, since the heat-sink is pretty good already.

It does not sound that great up close the sound is dominated by a buzz -- but this is what Larry reported, too. He measured 15 dBA vs 14 dBA for the reference ATI HSF -- installed and running in an enclosed system.

I just got a ASUS EAH6850 V2; I picked this particular model among others on the strength of your review, figuring I might be able to get away with stock cooling for a while. No way. This is one of the worst ~70mm fans I've heard in the post-Panflo era. Admittedly I try to pick quiet parts, so I usually don't get really bad ones.

Memories: I had to purchase a 9500GT in a hurry a while back and the very last of my vintage new-in-bag Panflos got ziptied onto that. :-)

That's what I figured I do in the short term for the EAH6850 V2, although with bigger fans. I took the fan/shroud off the heatsink. Annoyingly, you have to take the heatsink off the card to get to the screws holding the shroud (time to clean up the TIM and then wonder if you got it right....) With the fan/shroud sitting on the desk, I hooked up a variable voltage fan controller. The buzz in mine persists down to stall speed, only getting slightly quieter. It doesn't seem to be proportional to RPMs. At run speeds, putting a finger in it stops the noise. I'll probably repeat this with a PWM controller later for completeness. All fans are different, but after doing this experiment I decide it wouldn't matter how I tuned the BIOS; the most objectionable aspect of my fan's noise probably would have persisted.

MikeC wrote:

You have to remember, we do not test the noise on open bench, it is done in our P180 vga test platform system -- the logic is simple, that you never hear the video card outside the case, and it's unrealistic to test to test cooling/noise at load on the open bench -- way too easy.

Since this is SPCR, we're using the best noise-muffling case you can buy. (It's foam lined inside, has no real noise sources other than the video card.) Larry did say the Asus was the quietest overall -- 15 dBA idle + 18 dBA load -- inside the system/enclosure, which is not only well damped but also well cooled.

I don't have the quietest systems I can buy. I'd imagine there are a lot of builds like my desktop machines: Sonata-class enclosures, Yate Loon fans, Green Power drives mounted on stock antivibration mounts. Power supplies from a decent vendor (although Antec has been a real roll of the dice lately.) Fan mounts, fan controllers. I've had a couple of Antec Fusion HTPCs; they have a straight noise path out the right hand side.

The odd computer out for me is a gaming machine. It's not silent; its design is "use large diameter case fans to make everything else quieter". I had pretty good results with an Accelero S1 on a 4850, either with a Scythe zip-tied to it, or passive with external fans flowing over it. When I went Crossfire, the second 4850 had a good enough factory cooler that it wasn't really objectionable, especially when it already had a lot of cool air going over it. Let's put it a different way: the 4850 CF config was far quieter than my PS3 despite dissipating around four times the heat.

MikeC wrote:

Maybe all of you guys complaining of high idle speeds need to work on improving cool air intake to the VGA card?

I doubt it would help me much. My 22% was ~1700rpm. This is in a HAF 922; the side is an open mesh with a 200mm fan. Stock 200mm top. With the top and side 200mm fans set for optimal airflow, or both at 11v, the buzz of the EAH6850 at idle was still clearly audible and objectionable.

I actually would get information from runs on an open test bench for two reasons. First, "gamer" cases are getting that way. The way you can kinda-sorta get away with a mesh case is through careful component picking. More importantly, many mid-quiet machines have straight noise paths or otherwise less than stellar noise mitigation. That's true of the Fusion, and I would never put this 6850 in one. Restricted airflow with clear noise path is the hardest test, but I'd still love to see something like "This card produced a midrange frequency buzz at idle in open air. However when we put it in our standard foam-lined labyrinthine air path test stand, the buzz was not audible."

I think the SPCR review of the EAH6850 will lead to a lot of disappointments if the fans people are getting lately are anything like mine.

Anyway I ziptied two cheap-o 800rpm 120mm fans to the ASUS heatsink and that solved the buzz problem. At a 840/1100 overclock at stock volts I get Furmark 80 degrees, memory controller bouncing around 91 degrees. Idle is 48. I was getting 56/65 in one game. I'm not taking this super seriously because the old Accelero S1 is going on there soon, and I'll sink the VRMs then and undervolt etc. The ASUS heatsink probably wants higher static pressure than an Accelero.

Unlike many 6850 PCB layouts, the S1 looks like it will clear the PCI bracket without tin snips on the ASUS card.

Eventually I may get a second 6850, and since it's nice to have matching cards, I do kinda care what kind of performance I can get out of a modded ASUS heatsink. I'll need to check performance with restricted clearance; 120x25mm fans ziptied to sink may be too tall. If I'm going to put custom cooling on immediately, I need to budget another ~$50.

My fan itself is bad, but the hard mount to the shroud is what takes a bad, vibrating fan and makes it really special.

I bought a second ASUS DirectCU 6850 V2 (matching to play with Crossfire). Identical objectionable buzz/clicking at idle. If there is a single bad batch of fans it spans 50,000 serial numbers if I'm reading the serial numbers right.

So the usual "only the tiny fraction of people with a defect are heard from" phenomenon doesn't account for my experience at least. It's possible something specific to me or NewEgg or points in between is happening. Maybe low winter temperatures combined with mechanical shock did something in shipping, maybe my computer somehow curses the fan. But I got good reproducibility on a lab setup with nothing but the detached fan/shroud in common, so if my computer is cursing the fan it seems to be a permanent change.

Aside from the fan/shroud interaction, these do seem to be a decent card. If you're planning on aftermarket cooling in some form, I don't see anything wrong with the hardware. Unlike many 6850 boards, the Accelero S1 fits without modification, even leaving space for the Crossfire connector. It's priced decently. The second power connector may be to help with the phantom reports of genuine hardware instability of 68x0 cards in some computers talked about in the ATI forums (and there have been a couple of quiet hardware revisions from other vendors, so something may be up). If you look at it the right way, the existence of cards with simply a bad fan is probably less of a problem to people reading SPCR comment threads than a general audience; we're not going to live with it, we're going to fix it or at least RMA it. (That was the advice from one victim to another on the hardocp forum.)

Do I think the main review page needs an asterisk pointing at all six of us here who ran into this problem? I dunno. It just doesn't seem like it's now so obviously the best in all ways to all people. Maybe tell people to RMA it if it's loud. But I can't tell whether the reports of "it idles too high and RMAing didn't fix that" are really "it makes an objectionable noise at the lowest configurable speed" and whether than noise is broadband or it's my ticking/buzzing. The airflow component of noise at 1700rpm on mine may not be audible in a closed case, and was dominated by the top exhaust fan.

Staring at the card, I noticed one could remove the 75mm ASUS fan without removing the shroud. Which means you don't have to remove the heatsink either. Impatient, annoyed. Fan from the new card hits the box of Bad Examples--I clipped the wires in the middle rather than try to unknot the connector end. You know where to get a thin, quiet PWM 92mm fan with a mini JST connector? Google doesn't. But I had a fan/shroud from an Accelero L2 just staring at me. About twenty minutes of zip-tie feng shui got the L2 shroud attached over the now-empty fan space in the ASUS shroud. For something so gross, this works quite well so far; sometimes the RPM monitor is confused by low RPMs or something, but wow, full-range speed control from the native hardware on an Arctic Cooling 92mm fan is such a contrast. Air seems to be going where it's supposed to be directed by the shroud too, so the VRMs seem OK. The going price on the whole L2 package, $22 here, is not that far off from other the boutique fans we buy.

The shroud-on-shroud action adds up to around three slots, so I'm still forced to do something else with the top card. The usual 800rpm 120x25mms are an iffy fit, so now I want to try the hardware PWM to keep idle down. A shame you can't buy the bare 92x15mm Arctic Cooling fans. Maybe modding another L2, maybe a PWM-to-three-pin adapter for Scythe Slims on an Accelero S1? It's interesting enough to cut into my other hobbies.

To the best of my knowledge, "software" (non-BIOS-flashing) voltage control still seems to be limited to the ASUS SmartDoctor utility; this sets the at-load voltage and starts it slightly above the AMD reference design and only goes upward. SmartDoctor is also part of ASUS's long glorious tradition of really awful user interfaces for configuration and monitoring of their hardware. This wouldn't be so noticeable except in the contrast to MSI and Sapphire's tools for their hardware. SmartDoctor actually has some interesting thermal/performance management (level of overclock based on temperature) not available in Afterburner or Trixx, and ASUS get points for not gratuitously skinning every UI element--it's just the main window that's ugly and broken.....

[/quote]Just installed the Twin Turbo Pro on my EAH6850, it fits, with some small adjustments to the original VRM heatsink. I removed it temporarily and carefully bend the fins all under an angle in one direction to get a few extra mm room.

You have to be precise when installing the large memory heat-sink, but this is explained quite well in the manual. When installing the TTPro itself you have to be careful to tighten the screws crosswise to get good contact with the core, I had to do it twice, made a 10 C difference on GPU temp #2.

I connected the fan to the card, and when running idle I can barely hear my computer from below my desk. When under full load it ramps up nicely to a noise which is comparable to the original fan on idle. Which for me is a big improvement.

One disadvantage is that the rpm signal is messed up, it keeps switching randomly between ~600000 (yes 5 zero's) and ~3400 rpm. I found some other people on the web with the same problem, so I guess it's not just me. But since the PWM is working properly I can live with that.

People more adventurous than me might want to try MikeCs suggestion first and remove the plastic cover and fan, and attach your own low rpm fan, since the heat-sink is pretty good already.[/quote]

I want to do the same to mine but i dont know if i can

My motherboard is asus M4A87TD EVO (AMD processor)I never changed the cooler on a v-card so do you think i can handle it?Is it difficult?I mounted my desktop and changed the proccessor cooler with no problems but i wonder if i need any special skills to mount the Twin Turbo Pro on a EAH6850You said you bend the fins ... is that really necessary?Does the cooler manual explains how to mount it on EAH6850?

My motherboard is asus M4A87TD EVO (AMD processor)I never changed the cooler on a v-card so do you think i can handle it?Is it difficult?I mounted my desktop and changed the proccessor cooler with no problems but i wonder if i need any special skills to mount the Twin Turbo Pro on a EAH6850You said you bend the fins ... is that really necessary?Does the cooler manual explains how to mount it on EAH6850?

Bit late reply, but here we go:

If you can do it? Difficult to answer, some patience is required, but not much more skill than for an aftermarket CPU cooler.

Use the patience and some proper tools to remove the old heatsink and fan, 4 screws at the bottom, don't forget about the cable.

Clean of the old thermal paste (try not to get any on the components around the gpu) and use the tips in the manual to align (do that first!) the memory heatsinks (see picture). The I first cleaned the memory with isopropanol, then "roughed them up" with an eraser, wiping of the eraser parts with a dry cloth. After that I put on the memory heatsinks. The large one first, this needs to be aligned very well, also needs to be aligned carefully with the closest memory heatsink, then the rest. I attached them fully covering the memory, but still as far from the gpu as possible (sinks are bigger than the memory, the part not contacting the memory is pointing away from the gpu.)

The VRM heatsink is attached via pushpins and comes out quite easily when you carefully push the "locking mechanism" inwards towards the pin (just take a good look first!). Then you can either attach the VRM heatsinks of the TT pro or, like I did, slightly bend the fins of the heatsink. I put a credit card in between and against a fin and then slowly bend them, one by one. This gave me the extra mm required, else it would lift up the TT pro heatsink and prevent good contact with the GPU.

Now put some new thermal paste on (or use the one on the heatsink). I needed to reapply once, because I did not properly tighten the screws in a crosswise manner the first time, I still got high temperature for some sensors (GPU-Z). This is described very well in the manual. Then attach the cable, and done... (as stated before, I got weird rpm readings, but the fan ramps up fine though under load, so np)

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Maybe it's already been mentioned, but how do you guys check the fan speed in RPM? MSI Afterburner, Speedfan, and the default Catalyst control panel all give no information.Edit: GPU-Z works fine, and also shows the VRM temps and GPU amperage Still doesn't show in other software though, maybe it needs an update.

This is with the stock fan, right? Catalyst and Afterburner work on mine, and I'm pretty sure other utilities did too (for everything but voltage control, really).

It's possible you have a bad board or fan, or ASUS has changed designs again. How many wires are there between the board and the fan? If ASUS went to cheaper fans they may have reduced the wires as well.

On the plus side, cheaper fans may be of an older design less prone to vibration....

I currently have a very very quiet setup (dark rock pro usually running between 600-800 rpm, and be quiet silentwing fans on 7V, x660 psu, F4 samsung +ssd in a foam padded ft03 case).I cannot here this unless I put my ear 10 cm to the case, and even then it's difficult to discern the noise from the fridge compressor 15 m away. The build is currentluy being used as a mediacenter/gaming rig/headless virtual box fortran computation rig, so its on 24/7, and I must not be able to hear it.

I had read the spcr review, and thought this board would be awesome for my 'quiet' needs; considering the low idle noise. I am not too bothered about noise from the gpu whilst gaming, as I will have headphones on for that anyway, but I am now getting really scared about the idle noise after reading this thread.

Has anyone had issues recently with this card (maybe the issues about the fan were solved with time) ?

Also, I have an old accelero twin turbo (not the pro) which is officially not compatible with this card. But I also have a dremmel to cut the heatsink fin shoudl eed be, so my guess is it should fit then. So if my card fan is indeed noisy, would you guys suggest trying to strap on another bequiet silentwing on 7v after removing the original fan and shrowd (is this possible without visibly voiding the warranty) or should I just try and install the accelero.

I have had issues with the accelero: after instalation, the fans would not start on a hd4850 vapor x. So I modded the bios with RBE to have a higher idle speed; Everything seemed to work fine, and then a resistor behind the pwm plug on the hd4850 spontaneouly combusted... I tested the fans on teh accelero speeratly afterwards, they seem to work fine, but because I don't know what cause the flames I dont want to take chances on a brand new card if possible

EDIT : I just received the card; and the fan is runnig at 950 rpm at idle (22 %) . So either asus changed something, or i'm very lucky (can't hear it over the rest of the system at idle so perfect for me)

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